Chaos
by Shax
Summary: Robotnik finds a power source on a distant island populated with echidnas


CHAOS 

Series 1 - The Origins   
Episode 5 

[Visit Shax's Virtual Den][1]   
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A pre-warning from the author: I wrote series 1 a very long time ago (two years! Wow!), so please forgive me if the thirteen stories of this series are nowhere near as well written as the future series'. These fics are shorter, and have bad punctuation and may have cornier or holier plotlines. They do introduce a lot of future characters and concepts, however. 

Part one - Hidden Island 

CHAPTER ONE: NUTWOOD 

Mecha Sonic drilled into the stone wall, along with a group of SWATs. Doctor Robotnik looked on. "Keep digging! Faster!" he urged. One of the SWAT bots broke a large piece of rock away, revealing another rock wall behind it, littered with random gibberish cave paintings. Robotnik grinned. "YES!" he shreaked. Mecha took a good hard look at the paintings. "Doctor, with all due respect, I don't see what..." "It's here!" Robotnik interrupted, not taking much if any notice of the robot. "It's here! Just as it was written! Just as the legend said!" 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the continent, Sally, Sonic and Tails were having a great feast, not in Knothole, but in the coastal Freedom Fighter village of Nutwood. They were supposed to be there discussing plans and such, a sort of "buisiness" trip, but they were having more fun than anything. The leader was a tall wolf named Robbie, and he was surrounded by a group of villagers much like the dwellers of Knothole. "I'm so glad you could come!" said a short squirrel named Tex. "Thanks" replied Sally on the other side of the table. "We are going to try to interact a lot more with the other villages" Sonic was the only one not having as much fun as the others. He thought some of the villagers were rather creepy, and he couldn't help but notice an annoying young girl hedgehog who obviously had an eye on him. What's more, the food was so horrible it made him want to barf. Bush food was usually pretty yucky, but compared to this stuff, it was like an expensive french dessert. "Excuse me please" said Sonic politely. He hopped off his seat and walked out of the room. For bush-dwelling villagers, they sure had things pretty sweet. Expensive looking dining hall, huts that looked more like houses, and better computer equipment. Admiring the shiny finish on the wooden floor, he left the building looking for the out-house. Yes, for such dignified perfectionists, you would think they had built-in toilets like they did in Knothole, but they just had one lousy toilet block out in the middle of the village. It was hard to see in the dark, and Sonic could hardly tell the difference between space and wall. He eventually saw something a couple of metres away that looked like the toilets, so he lunged ahead, but collided with an unseen wall. "OOOUCH!!!!" 

He held his forehead in pain. Light flooded over him. "Are you okay?" asked Robbie the wolf, holding a torch. "I think so..." replied Sonic. "I didn't see that thing!" Robbie looked up at the wall Sonic had run into. "Ah! I see you have found the Chaos Map!" he said. "The what- what?" asked Sonic. "The Chaos Map" repeated Robbie, pointing at the giant slab of rock with paintings all over it. "It's an ancient map that is supposed to lead to some mystical island or something like that. There are only two maps in existance, and both are on this continent, possibly on opposite ends. We found this one in a cave a short way into the forest in the north." "Interesting" said Sonic, one hand still on his head. "Thanks, I'll be okay now. I'll try not to collide with any more artifacts." Robbie smiled and handed Sonic the torch, before turning and jogging back to the dining hall. Sonic headed for the toilet block. 

"HEAVE!" shouted Mecha at the straining SWAT bots. They lifted the huge slab of rock out of the wall and onto a large transport vehicle. "This map was drawn by the ancient inhabitants of this planet, Mecha" said Robotnik, watching the bots move the rock. "They drew it up to lead to a source of power far superior to anything we have previously known!" "Yeah, and they made it to fit right in your pocket" said Mecha to himself, sarcastically, watching the fifty-four SWAT bots straining to move the massive rectangular rock. The robots, Mecha and Robotnik then boarded the vehicle and left for Robotropolis. 

CHAPTER TWO: ROBOTNIK'S PLAN 

Sonic stood back in the Great Forest, heading for Robotropolis. When he got there, he was faced with a translucent purple force feild that surrounded the entire city. "What?" Sonic asked himself. He tried to touch the feild, and got a mild electric shock. Staring through the feild, he noticed that Robotropolis seemed abandoned. "Robotnik gone on a little outing, huh?" Sonic said, looking at the empty city. "He's pretty smart keeping me out like this, otherwise I'd go in there and egg his house." He turned around and headed back to Knothole to report his findings. 

Everything was quiet for a couple of days. Sonic and Knuckles went down to the force feild every day to see how things were going. Well, one day, they approached the field, and it disappeared before their eyes. They ran behind a tree, and a humungous transport vehicle approached with what looked like a pile of rocks in the trailer. The vehicle was being driven by a SWAT bot, and Robotnik was in the drivers seat. "Home sweet home!" he said with a smirk. "Hurry! We copy this onto a piece of paper, then we leave before those wretched Freedom Fighters find out about it!" "Find out about what?" Sonic whispered with a frown, watching the truck pass the boundry of Robotropolis. "No wonder the city was abandoned!" said Sonic, picking himself up. "That truck is big enough to carry every SWAT in Robotropolis! And that rock is big enough to........wait..." he seemed to be concentrating on something. "Wha's up, Sonic?" asked Knux. Sonic turned his head slowly. "He's got the Chaos Map!" he said. "The what-what?" asked Knux. "C'mon, we're going to Nutwood." said Sonic rushedly, running off. "Whoa, whoa, time out, Sonic!" said Knux, hurrying after him, but Sonic was already gone. 

"Tell me everything you know about the Chaos Map!" Sonic demanded Robbie the Wolf. Robbie looked over at Knuckles, who was reclining on a tree. Knux just shrugged. "Well, ask Tex, he's the artifact guy!" Robbie said, turning back to Sonic. The short squirrel they had seen before stepped out from the shadows. "So, someone evil has found the other map." he said, without expression. "Yeah, how'd you know?" asked Sonic. "I just know these things." he said. "Is it serious?" asked Knux. "If Robotnik wants it, it's gotta be a bit serious." Tex suddenly put on a very hard and serious expression. "No matter how serious you think this is, the true seriousness is one hundred times. You must copy down our map, and leave for the Chaos Isle post haste. Every second you stand here, is another leap towards armageddon." Sonic looked puzzled, and turned back to Robbie. "He seemed a very different person when we met him a fortnight ago on our last visit!" he said. Robbie shrugged. "Split personality problem. But I'd do what he says, anyway. He's always right." 

"Doctor, what is it exactly that we are trying to locate?" asked the frustrated and very bored Mecha Sonic. "An Island" replied Robotnik, looking out the window at the ocean below the Flying Battery Battleship. "An island of incredible power. We find that island, and we win the war against the Freedom Fighters, and indeed Mobius." "But WHY is this island so powerful?" asked Mecha. "On that island is an emerald" replied Robotnik. "Not ANOTHER emerald" Mecha thought out loud, resting his heavy metal head in his hands. "Not just any emerald" said Robotnik. "It isn't like the Chaos Emerald or the Super Emeralds, it's the most powerful emerald yet. It's the Havoc Gem. With that gem, I can have more than enough power for the Death Egg, in fact, I'm going to build a bigger and better model of the Death Egg. I'm calling it the Doomsday Egg!" Robotnik was grinning widely, now. Mecha just sank his head further into his hands. "It's always the same old plan" he thought. "Travel to a mysterious island, steal a mysterious emerald, build a huge egg-shaped battleship. Is it going to work THIS TIME?" Robotnik interrupted his chain of thought with a strange squeal. "There it is, Mecha!" Mecha looked out the window at a weird looking remote island. "Isn't it beautiful? There lies our destiny. Our power." Mecha was startled at Robotnik's sudden poetic tone of voice. "With respect, sir, you don't sound quite as evil as you usually do." Robotnik looked at him strangely, then smacked him over the back of the head with a steel bar. Mecha got up again, and sank back into a sitting position. "I stand corrected," he said, bitterly, feeling the side of his head for dents. The SWAT bot that piloted the battleship, started to bring it down towards the island. What kind of experiences would they have on such a strange isle? 

Part two - Isle of Mystery 

CHAPTER THREE: THE REAL ADVENTURE BEGINS 

"SONIC!" shouted Knux from the back of the small aeroplane. "Do you have to stand on the wing like that? You're scaring the pants off me!" Sonic turned and gazed past Tails in the Pilot seat, to Knuckles, in the back seat of the small biplane. "You don't wear pants!" he giggled against the wind. "Figure of speech!" Knux snapped back. "Just get off there!" Sonic smiled. "I'll be okay, I always stand here. If you don't like it, just don't watch me!" Knux rolled his eyes and looked over the other side of the plane. They were in the middle of the ocean, following an ancient map that might lead nowhere. "What if the map is wrong?" asked Knux. Sonic looked at him strangely. "We are not going to stop this mission just because of the remote possibility that it isn't real! Don't be such a worry wart!" 

It took them nearly twelve hours, but they finally found land. They landed on the beach. "Do you think it's the island?" asked Tails. Sonic turned and noticed a huge object a couple of meters into the bush. "Does that answer your question?" he asked. "The Flying Battery!" said Tails, recognizing it from their adventure on the Floating Island. "Let's find Robotnik before he does ... whatever it is he wants to do!" said Sonic, realizing that he didn't know what Robotnik came here for, and why Tex had been so serious about it. Little did they know, that the answer would hit them very soon... 

Robotnik and Mecha trudged through the odd paddock, followed by an army of SWAT bots. "This place would look very nice Robotized" said Robotnik, imagining what it would look like covered in metal and plastic. They came to a large forest that was strangely dense. In fact, so dense, that there was no way to fit between the trees! They eventually found a spot on the side of the forest with a bit of scrub, and a large tree trunk. The strange thing was, that there was a very old echidna sitting on top of the trunk, meditating. "I thought you said this island was uninhabited!" said Mecha. The old pink echidna opened his eyes, and glanced at the two, smiling. "Welcome, weary travellers!" he said. "You are of odd races! One of you has skin as pale as the moon, and the other has skin as dark and glittering as the lake at night. But all are welcome, here!" "...And you are?" asked Mecha, glaring at the strange old echidna. "Call me Pantheos" he replied. "It means 'wise one' in the language of the Ancients. Shall you be staying to rest?" "No" said Robotnik. "We are on a...uh...quest, and we can't rest until we find the, uh, powerful Havoc Gem." Pantheos' eyes lit up suddenly. "Of what purpose is this quest?" "The quest for power and greed" replied Robotnik, hoping to intimidate the frail old creature. Pantheos shook his head. "I shall not reveal the location of the sacred gem to the likes of you. Begone!" "So you know where it is?" asked Mecha, grabbing a gun and aiming it at Pantheos. "Tell us, or I will perform plastic surgery on your wrinkled old face!" Pantheos shook his head again and held out his hand. There was a strange power surge, and the gun was knocked from Mecha's hand. "WHAT?" he yelled, shocked. "Come on, Mecha, we don't need him to find the emerald." said Robotnik. Mecha frowned and ordered the SWAT bots to follow them again. Pantheos watched in anger as the army passed by. Then he took a deep breath, and continued meditating. 

Sonic, Tails and Knuckles were following the footprints of the robot army. Unfortunately, Robotnik had about a half day head start. They camped for the night when they got tired, and started walking again early in the morning. Eventually, they also came to the strange dense forest. "This forest is like a wall!" said Sonic. Knuckles couldn't help thinking that there was something familiar about it. They walked onward, but were startled by a voice from behind them. "Welcome, travellers." they turned to see an old echidna sitting on a tree stump, surrounded by vines. They were all surprised to see him, but not half as surprised as Knuckles was. "B....B....But....y....you're a....a...." stuttered Knux, staring in amazement. "I see one of our kind walks with you. I sense you are not on the side of evil." continued the old echidna. A huge smile spread across Knuckles' face. "You mean, I'm not the only echidna? There are TWO!?!" The old echidna shook his head. "No, my son, not two." Knuckles looked puzzled as the old echidna took one of the vines and started to tug on it. The trees in the dense forest wall began to part in one place, like a door opening. Inside the wall was, not more trees, but a village. Echidnas ran around, some old, some young, some only children. There were hundreds. Knuckles emitted a strange undescribable noise that Sonic hadn't heard him make before, and fainted. 

CHAPTER FOUR: ECHIDNAS 

"Wake up" came a sweet feminine voice. Knux slowly opened his eyes and saw the face of another echidna staring at him. She looked slightly younger than him. Looking around, he saw Sonic and Tails also looking at him. "He hasn't seen another echidna in at least twelve years" Sonic whispered to another, middle aged echidna who looked quite puzzled. "Are you okay?" asked the girl echidna. "Yeah, uh, fine" replied Knux, dazed. "What'cha got there, sis?" came another voice from behind them. Another, slightly older echidna approached. "Hey, I haven't seen him in the village before!" he gasped. "He came from somewhere else, over the ocean" replied the girl. Knuckles picked himself up off the ground. "Hi, how'ya doing?" asked the other echidna. "The name's Sagittarius, on account of my archery abilities, but you can call me Sage." Knuckles smiled. "My names Knuckles, on account of....well...." Sage stared at the two sharp spikes sticking out of his knuckles on each hand. "Whoa!" he said. "Where'd you get those?" "I donno" replied Knux. "Some kind of mutation, I guess. They come in handy, though!" The girl cleared her throat in a kind of "hey, what about me?" way. "Oh, yeah, an' this is my sis, Nasha. That means....something to do with trees or something, I think" said Sage. "It means, sunny spring day, dear brother!" she said, throwing him a play-punch. "So, what brings you guys here?" Sage asked the trio. "We honestly don't know." said Sonic. "We were sent here to stop a fat guy and a robot from doing something terrible, we just don't know what that terrible thing is! We don't even know what this place is called, as a matter of fact." The old echidna stepped out from behind them. "I know the answers you seek." "That's my great uncle, Pantheos" said Sage, seemingly impressed that everyone they had met was a relation of his. "You stand atop the Chaos Isle" said Pantheos. "And the thing you must protect is the Havoc Gem." "What's the Havoc Gem?" asked Tails. "Ah, young one, to answer this question I must go back many years" said Pantheos. "Now you've gone and put him into one of his storytelling moods!" Sage whispered to Tails. "It all began millions of years ago." started Pantheos. "There were four islands, on the four corners of the planet, and on each one was placed a magnificent emerald. Each of the four emeralds had a different power, one could allow things to float and fly, including the island itself, one could turn things invisible, one could travel through time, and then there was the most powerful one, the Havoc Gem. According to legend, the emerald that turns things invisible, turned itself and the island invisible and were never seen again, and the time-travelling emerald was accidentally launched onto one of the two moons that orbited this planet, and shattered into seven 'Time Stones'. That left only the floating emerald that we called the 'Master Emerald', and the Havoc Gem, which lies on this very island." Knuckles was anxious to tell that he was the actual guardian of the Master Emerald, but decided to wait until after Pantheos was finished his story. 

"The ancients guarded the Havoc Gem" continued Pantheos, "But one day, a great evil came. The ancients needed to harness the power of the Havoc Gem, but it was too much for them to withstand, so they chipped off seven smaller emeralds from it's surface. With those seven 'Chaos Emeralds', the ancients are said to have become invincible and glowed brightly. They fought off the evil, but as a result of the clashing forces, the emeralds were hurled across the sea to another land. Then the ancients....but wait.....I have strayed from the point. Forgive me, I get a bit excited when I tell of these legends. But the point is, that the evil has returned once again, now in the form of strange beings, mechanical made. It has returned once again for the gem, and you must stop it, before the power is unleashed. The power of the gem is unstoppable, and when the robot race finds it, they shall be likewise. 

"Whoa! That's tense!" said Sage. "I've heard the story about the Havoc Gem a thousand times, but not the other ones! Can they really make you travel through time and turn invisible and fly?" "I should know" said Knux. "I'm the guardian of the Master Emerald!" Sage, Nasha, and virtually everybody except Sonic, Tails and Pantheos gasped. In fact, Pantheos smiled and walked off towards a large hut. "Well, I guess we should get going and find Robotnik before he does a lot of damage, huh?" said Sonic. "Don't go yet!" said Sage. "We have so much to learn! Stay for lunch!" "No" came a voice from behind them. Pantheos approached with a huge, dusty old book. "Every second wasted is a leap towards Armageddon" Sonic gasped, because that had been exactly what Tex the Squirrel had told him. "Observe" said Pantheos, opening the book. He opened to a page with a picture of the island, and writing all over it. It said: 

"Hark all ye who hear thy legend of thy Great Evil, for one day it is written, a great army shalt approach, made from crude iron and steel. Only three colored gods shalt have thy power to send thy army back across thy ocean to where it originated. A blue god, whom uses thy mythical Chaos Emeralds to gain great power. An orange god, whom flies without thy use of gadgets, and a red god, made in our likeness, whom bonds with thy great Master Emerald. Only these gods have the power sufficient to banish the devils, mechanical made. 

Holmelious Rashmad Echidna, 1243 AD"

"Until this very day, we knew not what was meant by this parchment." said Pantheos, closing the book. "Go now. It is your destiny. Let the spirits of the ancients guide you." 

CHAPTER FIVE: ROBOTNIK BEGINS A NEW EMPIRE 

"Yes, yes this will do nicely" said Robotnik. "The perfect place for the Egg Fortress!" Mecha looked at him strangely. "Sir, why are you always calling things eggs?" Robotnik looked at the robot in confusion. "Egg-o-Matics, Death Eggs, Doomsday Eggs, Egg Fortresses, what is the deal with that?" continued Mecha. "You would never say something like that to me" said Robotnik, coldly. "You wouldn't dare. You must still have something wrong with your circuits when that hedgehog bashed you into a tree and sent you insane. I must look into your data banks sometime." Mecha saluted and walked off. "Why does Robotnik talk about eggs all the time?" he thought. "And why is he always so edgy when I ask him about it? I guess he's just insane. I wish I was working for someone who could think up better names, and for that matter, better plans." he walked off to order the robots to start building. Robotnik was right, Mecha's personality had changed a bit, he didn't seem so evil as he usually was. It was hard to put your finger on it, but there was something different about the way he thought and acted. But I guess that is fleeing a bit from the story, so we'll go back now to Sonic, Tails and Knuckles. 

"So how do you suppose we got in that book?" asked Knux, as they walked away from the forest village. "It's not referring to us." said Sonic. "It's just a load of ancient villager gibberish." "Well, you're blue, aren't you? And you use the emeralds to gain great powers!" said Knux. "Coincidence." said Sonic. "And Tails is orange and flies without gadgets! And I'm red, I look like those guys and I look after the Master Emerald!" said Knux. "Coincidence." said Sonic. "And Robotnik's robots are evil and mechanical! And..." started Knux. "Okay, okay, I get the point!" said Sonic. They heard a voice from behind them. "HEY! WAIT UP!" the three looked up, and saw Sagittarius running up to them. "Can I join you?" he asked. "Father said I could! And look! I brought my super bow and arrows!" "Well....." said Sonic, undecided. Sage took an arrow from his backpack, aimed it in the bow, and shot it straight through a blowfly, pinning it on a tree. Sonic gazed in amazement. "Yeah, I guess there's strength in numbers" he said. 

Robotnik had set to work robotizing the large field they found earlier. He thought plastic trees and plants looked a whole lot better than real ones did. "Welcome to Plastic Hill, Mecha!" he said. "Nice" said Mecha, looking over it. "When are you going to build this 'Doomsday Egg?'" Robotnik thought about it. "After I've set up a nice cozy robotic environment." he said. "Soon I will build the D.E., search for the Havoc Gem, and TAKE OVER THIS BLASTED PLANET ONCE AND FOR ALL!" "I'm sure this planet will look so much better with your face drawn on the front of it." said Mecha. "Yes" replied Robotnik. "How true!" 

Part three - Treasure Hunt 

CHAPTER SIX: PLASTIC HILL 

Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and their new ally Sage, couldn't believe their eyes when they approached what used to be a flat, green plane. "I---I can't believe it!" said Sage in a high pitched voice, one hand clutching his long yew bow, and the other balled into a tight fist. "What have the robots DONE!?!" The plane was now even flatter and even greener than it was before. The grass was replaced by a sheet of bright green metal, and the trees and flowers had been destroyed to make way for the plastic imitations. "Three guesses who made this" said Sonic, frowning. "It didn't take long for Robotnik to create this" said Knux. "He's working faster than usual." The group decided they would have to move fast in order to save the Havoc Gem. Meanwhile, Sonic was amazed at how the Chaos Isle was so strange. The trees and plants came in all the colors of the rainbow. It was beautiful! "The ancients were marvellous genetic engineers" said Sage. "They created fantastic animals and plants." "Tell me more about these 'ancients'" said Knux, sounding very interested. "The ancient echidna race populated this island from the beginning of recorded history, until just forty-three years ago, when they all mysteriously disappeared, except for a remote few. They set up our village, and began a whole new generation, which I'm a part of, and called ourselves the 'Hahmilt' which means 'second' in the ancient language. Now, Great Uncle Pantheos is the last survivor that witnessed the disappearance" said Sage. "The rest of us are the new ones. The second. The Hahmilt." Knux looked like he was about to faint again. "That is exactly what happened on my island!" he said, shakily. "Exactly forty-three years to this day, my civilization mysteriously disappeared! Except, it only left two. Mum and Dad. They are gone, too, now. That's why I was so excited to see more echidnas, I--I thought I was alone in the world. I---I---I---" Tears formed in his eyes. Sonic knew he always got emotional when talking about his parents. "C'mon" said Sonic. "No use standing here talking, we have work to do." 

Sonic, Knux and Sage had a tough time getting across the slippery metal ground. Tails just flew overhead. "Hey, I just thought of something" said Sonic, before slipping backwards and landing on his behind. "How on Mobius did Robotnik manage to get all this metal and robotize a paddock in half an hour?" Knux just shrugged and reached down to help Sonic up. "This place is like an ice rink!" he said. It was then, when Sonic was getting back onto his feet again, that he happened to look up. "Hey, look!" he shouted. The sky was filled with small flying ships, exactly like the ones they saw on Angel Island, near the floating island. But instead of being equipped with flame- throwers and rocket launchers for scorching everything, they seemed to be carrying something. "Carrying metal from Robotropolis" said Knuckles. "I hate those things!" said Tails, remembering nearly being scorched in the conflagration of Angel Island. "We better hurry, or Robotnik will colonize the island completely. It will become another, bigger Robotropolis, and then finding the Havoc Gem will be like finding a needle in a haystack, when the haystack is on fire and the needle is 3mm long!" Sage looked over to Sonic. "You seem like you know this guy" he said. "We do" said Sonic. "His name is Dr. Robotnik, and if we don't find that gem soon, our names will be mud." 

Eventually, they approached what seemed to be a factory in construction. "What's this for?" asked Tails, staring at the mechanical mess. "Looks like some kind of factory or something" said Knux. "Don't ask me" said Sage. "I don't know nuthin' about robots an' factories an' stuff like that. I'm good at natural science, but this mechanical stuff is way over my head!" So, you're a scientist, eh?" asked Sonic. "Well, I'm not THAT good" said Sage, modestly. "It sorta comes naturally. The ancients were great scientists of nature. They practically genetically engineered this entire island!" Sonic continued to stare at the construction, hundreds of worker bots scampering over it like ants. "How do you guys feel about a little 'industrial sabotage?'" he asked. Knux, Sage and Tails smiled. 

"How is Megarobotropolis coming along, Mecha?" asked Robotnik. The plump scientist decided to name the new robotized island "Megarobotropolis". Mecha knew he could think up about a zillion better names for it, and he didn't even have a real brain. His mind began to wander about having a real brain. But wait a minute! He decided he must have faulty wiring or something to continue to daydream like this. It seemed something inside him was trying to get out. Another personality was trying to override his own. "MECHA! ANSWER ME!" yelled Robotnik. "Oh, sorry, sir" said Mecha, apologetically. "The valley has been robotized, the main factory is being built, and plans are being finalized for the Egg Fortress." "Excellent!" said Robotnik. "I can conquer this planet yet." 

Mecha was wrong, though, the factory was not being built. Sonic, Tails, Knux and Sage stood outside the demolished building, broken worker bots, gears and gadgets lying everywhere. Most of the worker bots had arrows through them. "That's some nice shooting, Sage!" said Sonic, admiring their little raid. "Thanks!" said Sage. "That's Chaos Isle one, robots nil!" But now it was starting to get dark. "We'll have to get a move on." said Sonic, turning to Sage. "How are we going to find this Havoc Gem?" Sage smiled. "The location to the Havoc Gem is a long mystery. Many have sought it's presence, none have succeeded." Knux frowned. "Fantastic." he said, sarcastically. "Wait, there's more." said Sage. "The hunt for the gem is much like a treasure hunt. It is said that there are many clues one must follow, spread across the island." "So where do we start looking for these clues?" asked Sonic. "The first clue is said to be somewhere within......the ancient graveyard." "Even better" said Knux, sarcastic again. 

CHAPTER SEVEN: AZTEC GARDEN 

It was about midnight by the time the four reached the graveyard. Tails acted brave, but he was obviously scared stupid. "Why does it always have to be midnight when you're in a graveyard?" asked Sonic. "Is it some kind of law or something?" "Don't be such scaredy-cats!" said Sage, jokingly. They rested for a while, made a fire, and Sage made some more arrows out of tree branches and sticks, and sharpened rocks. "What kind of 'clue' are we looking for?" asked Knux. "Probably an ancient verse of some kind, maybe a slab of rock with a diagram or map, or something like that." replied Sage, not looking up from what he was doing. They eventually had to get up, make a torch by lighting a stick, and go to search the graveyard. "What is all this mumbo-jumbo written on the headstones?" asked Sonic. "That's the language of the ancients." said Sage. "The ancients spoke English as well as their own language, but they used their own mostly." The 'language of the Ancients' consisted mostly of strange symbols and echidna faces displaying various emotions. Very strange for a language. Eventually they came to a large group of tombstones arranged in a circle. "These are the graves of the seven great kings of the ancient times." said Sage. "Hey, come over here!" yelled Knux. They all huddled over near the largest stone, where there was a large message written in both the language of the ancients and English, except the English was very old. It said: 

TO ALL THOU WHOM SEEKETH THE HAVOC GEM: Thy quest beginneth here, in the land of thy dead, Follow thy clues, memorize them in thou head, Thy ancients shalt guide thou, trusteth no-one instead, Towards thy marble city, thou musteth head. 

"Marble city?" asked Tails. "There is said to be an old marble ruin to the exact northeast." said Sage. "We can get there by morning." As they left, Something caught Sonic's eye. A small inscription was underneath the one they just read. Sonic squinted to see it in the dim torch light. It said: 

By thy way, all, watch where thou be heading, for every second wasted is a leap towards Armageddon. 

"Come on, Sonic! We need that torch!" shouted Knux from up ahead. Sonic stood up and ran towards the others. What was it with that phrase? Why was everyone always telling him "Every second wasted is a leap towards Armageddon"? There was something strange going on around here, and it involved those words. Was someone trying to give him a clue or something? 

They walked and walked and walked. Tails was beginning to feel sick. Eventually, the sun came up on the horizon. Light flooded the area. Tails looked back and noticed his shadow was thirty feet long. "Won't need this anymore" said Sonic, blowing out the torch. They walked for about another kilometer before they found a giant ruin, somewhat like the Marble Gardens on the Floating Island. It was built on the edge of a cliff, overlooking a valley. The view was magnificent. "Looks like Robotnik hasn't made it to this place yet" said Knux, admiring the beautiful vision before him. "One problem" said Sonic. "Whassat?" asked Knux, his eyes not shifting from the view. "That clue we're looking for." said Sonic. "It could be absolutely anywhere." 

He was so right. Marble Gardens was a rock garden compared to the size of this massive place. Looking for one manuscript would take forever. They searched for about an hour, but gave up. "It's hopeless, Robotnik's high tech detection equipment will find the gem, then he'll take over Mobius, before we even finish looking for one small tablet." said Sonic. "I just wish we had a better clue, rather than them saying it was somewhere in this ten kilometer squared area." said Knux. "Maybe we do" said Sage, after a couple of minutes. Sonic and Knux looked at him. "Think, does anybody remember what the clue in the graveyard said?" Sonic thought about it. "I dunno, something like, 'Your quest starts amongst the dead, something something in your head, the ancients something something instead, something marble ruins you must head.'". Nobody had really taken any notice, they thought the only thing that mattered was the part that told them where to go. "There must be some sort of hidden clue within that message." said Sage, thoughtfully. "I know the second verse was ' Memorize it in your head', maybe that's what we should have done!" They thought for a long while, and finally came to the conclusion that the verse went: 

Thy quest beginneth here, in the land of thy dead, Follow thy clues, memorize them in thou head, Thy ancients -- instead, To thy Marble City, thou musteth head. 

"I've racked my brains!" said Knux. "There is absolutely no hidden message in that!" "It must be in the part that we can't remember." said Sonic, woefully. "There's not much we can do, except head back to the graveyard." said Sage. "THAT'S TWENTY KILOMETERS AWAY!!" yelled Tails, still unbelievably tired from the first trek. "We have no choice" said Sonic. "I guess it's back to the graveyard. If we're lucky, we can make it before sundown." 

Dr. Robotnik, in the meantime, had finished his work on the base and factories. He was now ready to start work on the Doomsday Egg, and begin searching for his main goal - the Havoc Gem. It was lucky for the three Freedom Fighters that Robotnik didn't know they were there, otherwise he wouldn't dawdle so much. If he had detected their presence, he would certainly have possession of the gem already... 

The four adventurers prepared for the long hike back to the graveyard, and then the long hike back to the ruins. They were already sick of it. They entered an old cracked hallway full of hieroglyphics representing echidnas doing various activities including fishing, sewing, spearing animals, and what looked like scientific testing. "If only we could remember those words!" said Sonic again, still not believing they had to go back again. They passed several places with the hieroglyphics, until they came to the entrance to the city. There was another hall with hieroglyphics, but instead of representing echidnas working, all the pictures were exactly the same, they all stood straight with their left arm sticking out sideways. "Funny" said Sage. "Why would the ancients do that?" Sonic stopped and looked. "Aerobics?" he suggested. "Look closely, are they wearing tights?" "They look like they're pointing." said Tails. Sage looked at him strangely. "The ancients shalt guide you, trusteth no-one instead" he muttered under his breath. "Huh?" asked Knux. "The ancients shalt guide you, trusteth no-one instead!" he repeated, excitedly. "The missing part of the poem! I remember it! And look, the pictures are the ancients pointing! They are guiding us! We're on the right track!" He ran in the direction of the hieroglyphs, which guided them practically all over the ruins. 

They eventually approached one of the three tallest buildings in the center of the ruin. The hieroglyphs pointed to the doorway, but stopped there. Entering the building, they noticed that it was empty, except for the giant echidna statue on the far wall. It nearly reached the stone ceiling. In one hand it held a lightning bolt, and in the other it held a stone tablet with writing on it. "It's the great god Amon-Sebek" said Sage. "The law-keeper. The stone tablet is the listing of the laws, and the lightning represents punishment if the laws aren't followed." "Well let's just see what Mr. Amon-Sebek has on that tablet" said Knux, gliding over and scaling the statue to get a closer look. He read out aloud what the writing said. 

"Thou came this far, how smart thou are, but now there be more fun, Thou must fly into thy sky, Where statues hide the sun." 

"The sky? Statues?" asked Sonic, confused. "Of course!" said Sage. "The Cloud Palace! The ancients constructed a city in the sky!" Knux glided over. "Like the Sky Sanctuary on my island?" asked Knux. "I don't know about that, I've never seen your island!" apologized Sage. "These echidnas seem very similar to my race!" said Knux to Sonic. "Perhaps we're related!" Knuckles was very excited at the thought that he may have a chance to unlock his past. Maybe, by studying the ancients of the Chaos Isle, he may be able to find out the truth about his race, and maybe even find out why they disappeared... 

They stood on a rising platform, as it slowly made its way into the fluffy clouds. Instantly, they saw a beautiful polished red tiled floor, on top of it were red statues, red fountains, aw heck, everything was exactly the same shade of red. Sonic never thought so much red could be so beautiful. But here it was. They knew, though, that finding a clue in this place would be just as hard as it was in the marble city. There was a huge network of platforms, each one fitting perfectly to the shape of the cloud. Since clouds change shape and disappear, Sonic figured that there were some mighty powerful emerald forces happening in this place. Still, it was lucky nobody amongst them had a significant problem with heights, because it was a looooooooong way down....... 

Part four - GAME OVER 

CHAPTER EIGHT: CLOUD PALACE 

Jumping from stone to stone across the clouds, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Sage searched for clues that could lead to the hiding place of the mysterious Havoc Gem that resided here on the Chaos Isle. They had had a great adventure since the beginning of this strange experience, Knuckles was overly excited at the adventure, as he was learning more and more about the history of his race. Tails, who was usually scared on experiences like this, seemed to be becoming a lot braver when faced with danger. Sagittarius the Echidna, resident of the island, was their 'guide', which made things a lot easier when navigating the island, and it was also the adventure of his life. And Sonic, well, he was just acting like he usually was on adventures, like it was no big deal. But even he knew that this was one of the most fantastic, yet perilous experiences he has ever had. It seemed all four of them were born for this particular moment, as was almost proven in the ancient legend of three gods, red, orange and blue, rescuing the island from the robot army. Talking about the robots, they and Robotnik were making massive progress on their hunt for the emerald known as the Havoc Gem, most powerful artifact on Mobius. While they were using the best of technology to locate it, while the good guys were forced to fall back on ancient clues that sent them all over the island like random. They would have to hurry if they wanted to beat Robotnik. They would have to REALLY hurry. 

********** 

Mecha had not uttered a word for thirty-six hours. He just dawdled behind the fleet of SWAT bots, worker bots, and other robots that were there, and pretended he wasn't there. Robotnik blamed it on faulty wiring, but couldn't repair him yet because he was too busy searching for the gem. Mecha was really not all there most of the time, he seemed to be deep in thought. Robotnik had a very good state-of-the-art energy detector with him as he led the army of robots across the countryside. He was determined to find that gem, and he knew he would. 

His detector started bleeping, and he got a fix on a very large, almost devastating, underground power source to the northeast. He signalled the robots to turn, and started towards the dot on the monitor. 

"Remember the clue, this time?" asked Sage, smiling. " 

Sure did." answered Sonic. 

"According to the verse, we should look for statues that hide the Sun." 

They looked around, and immediately saw a huge statue near the center of the complex, constructed in such a way that almost every position you stand in, the sun is blocked from view. 

"That was easy!" said Tails. 

Getting across to the statues wasn't quite as easy, though. The floor was shaped to match the clouds, and there were a lot of holes. It was easy for Tails and Knux, who just flew and glided over, but Sonic and Sage couldn't do anything like that, so they had to leap across the chasms. Sage slipped once, but regained his balance. 

They eventually reached the statues, and searched for a clue. Tails found something at the base of the middle statue. There was a small picture of an emerald, and underneath it was a framed rectangular space where a stone tablet...........used to be. "What?" asked Sonic, searching for it, thinking it was just lying there beside the statue. They found nothing except a small corner of stone with "Thou hath f" written on it, obviously broken off from a bigger document. Except that was the only part in the entire area. "What do we do now?" demanded Sonic, staring at the broken corner. "The clue is not here, we have absolutely no idea where to find the gem, and now Robotnik has the upper hand!" He sat down, deep in thought. 

"Well, maybe we'll just have to find the gem ourselves." said Sage, making it sound a lot easier than it obviously would be. 

"We're stuffed." said Sonic. They turned back, and slowly walked away from the missing clue. 

Night began to fall. The four headed back to the moving platform to go down to the ground again. The beauty of the place seemed to fade away. Knux glanced over to see two small statues on the wall. They were echidnas, red as the rest of the palace, holding their hands outwards. It was as if they were hiding something. A closer inspection revealed a hieroglyph of the sun on the wall behind their fanned-out hands. Knuckles turned and left, too upset for the obvious to register. 

Robotnik approached a steep mountain. The blip on his gem tracker revealed that the power source was inside it. "Robots, start digging!" he ordered. The robots automatically began to dig away the mountain. Mecha just stood there. Robotnik repeated his order, and Mecha got up and slowly made his way to the other robots. 

"Thou must fly into the sky where statues hide the sun." muttered Sonic, walking across the rocky plain. "Talking about statues hiding the sun, I saw...." started Knux, but he stopped and looked over to the horizon. "Look!" he shouted. 

Over behind the mountains was an area lit up brightly, so you could see it as if it was in daylight. It was something Sonic hoped he would never see again. The Death Egg. Actually, it was the Doomsday Egg. Sonic thought the original model was huge, but he had never seen anything mechanical that was as massive as this. 

"We have to continue looking for the gem." he said. "Or we are all doomed." 

They began to think up possible hiding places for the gem. They decided to try several places, but little did they know that Knuckles had the information that could save them, hidden away at the back of his mind. 

Sonic again muttered the last part of the strange poem. "Thou must fly into the sky where statues hide the sun." Knuckles again remembered the statues he found. "Hey, Sage" he said. Sage looked over at him. "I saw something strange in the Cloud Palace, do you know what it means? I saw these two echidnas, and their arms were outstretched...." 

"WOWSERS!" interrupted Tails. 

Everyone looked up and saw a huge fleet of flying ships carrying more metal to the site of the huge battleship. 

"They can sure build fast" said Sonic. 

They continued on their way, and Knux forgot what he was going to ask Sage. If only he could figure it out. "Thou must fly into the sky where statues hide the sun." said Sonic again. 

"Will you stop saying that? You're driving me up the wall!" said Knuckles. 

"Sorry." said Sonic, smiling slightly. 

Something began pounding at the back of his brain, but he couldn't quite think. Suddenly, it hit him like a Mack truck. "We have to get back to Cloud Palace!" he yelled suddenly. Sonic, Tails and Sage turned and looked at him. 

"Why?" asked Sage. 

"No time to explain!" Knux said, turning to run. "Just run, there isn't much time!" 

CHAPTER NINE: GLITTERING JEWEL 

They stood looking at the two statues. "What are we doing here?" asked Tails. 

"What would you say if I told you we had the wrong statues before?" asked Knux. He was just answered by a lot of stares. Knux turned to the statues and wondered what he had to do. He touched the arm of one of them, and cranked it back. Doing the same to the other one, they heard a click, and saw that the sun hieroglyph was now glowing brightly, no longer hidden from view. "WHOA!" yelled everyone, caught by surprise. The light from the picture acted like a spotlight, highlighting a previously invisible message on the opposite wall. It read: 

YOU HAVE MADE IT SO FAR, YOUR QUEST IS NOW SEALED, 

YOU MUST HAVE COME FOR THE GEM TO DEFEAT THE CREATURES OF STEEL, 

GO NOW TO THE GROUND, THE GEM IS RIGHT UNDER YOUR HEELS. 

They were startled at the fact that this message, unlike the others, was written in new English, and did not contain words like thou, thy, etc. 

"Of course!" said Sage. "There is supposed to be an underground cave right near here! The gem must be inside!" 

They raced towards the moving platform, excited that they knew where the gem was. 

When they reached the ground, they saw a cave entrance on the side of a mountain. They rushed towards it. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of that very mountain, Robotnik and the robot army were tunnelling into the side, after the same gem, and they were nearly finished. It was a huge race against time, now. Who would be first to touch the jewel? There was about fifteen minutes to find out... 

The cave went for about forty meters before it suddenly stopped at a dead end. The last section of the cave was not natural, but more like a small room tiled with smooth bricks. On the wall in front of them were strange symbols. 

"What does that mean?" asked Sonic, annoyed, for he was expecting the Havoc Gem to just be laying there. 

"It's the language of the ancients" said Sage, inspecting it. 

"What does it say?" asked Knux. " 

It roughly translates into......doomsday, or something." Sage replied. "There's another word for it....let me think...." 

"Armageddon?" suggested Knuckles. 

"Yes! That's the word!" said Sage. 

The word sparked a memory with Sonic, but he couldn't quite remember where he heard it last. 

"What are we supposed to do?" asked Tails. 

"For once, I wouldn't have a clue!" said Sage. "The ancient books and literature I've studied don't even mention this word! I---I don't---get it!" 

Sonic struggled to remember. "Armageddon, Armageddon, what is special about that word?" Then he remembered what Tex the Squirrel had told him, and Pantheos, and the poem on the gravestone. He thought about it, then suddenly realized that the answer to this puzzle was being rubbed in his face constantly even before he left the mainland. He knew what he had to do. Walking back a couple of meters, he got a run-up and ran as fast as he could towards the wall (and that is pretty fast!). He impacted on the wall and heard his friends begin to rush to his aid when he was inevitably knocked out. But he wasn't. When he hit the wall, he felt a splash of liquid as he went straight through it and landed on a cold cave floor. Getting up, he noticed he was in another tunnel, with a glow around the corner. Grinning, he muttered to himself "Leap towards Armageddon!" 

As Sonic looked around the cave, brightly lit by the strange glow, he hoped his friends were able to realize what he did and follow. He waited for about five minutes, when the wall behind him went wavy like water, and Sage landed beside him. Looking around, and then seeing Sonic, he grinned. "Amazing! You can't just walk through the wall, you have to leap!" he said. "When you jumped through the wall, we spent a while trying to walk through it, until I tried leaping!" 

They waited for a few seconds, and Tails and Knuckles came flying through. 

"Interesting" said Knux, rubbing the lump on his head from where he landed on a rock. 

The four advanced along the tunnel, half expecting to get attacked by bats or something. When they reached the end, they saw a magnificent sight, that needs an entire paragraph to describe: 

There was a room there. It was about 10m high and 20m wide. It was lined with strange crystals, they were red and blue. They looked as if they were carved with something. The crystals glowed slightly, giving the room a dim light. On the walls were strange symbols, they were not the language of the ancients, they didn't look like any language any of them, including Sage, had seen before. The most spectacular sight was in the center of the room. On a natural table of soil and fine rocks, lay a huge gem, it was glowing, and it's color shifted between red and blue. On the wall behind it was a crescent of smaller gems. Everyone knew instantly what they were staring at. The Havoc Gem. 

Sonic walked up to touch the Havoc Gem. "NO! DON'T TOUCH IT!" screamed Sage, suddenly. Sonic stopped. 

"Why?" he asked. 

"You'll turn hyper" replied Sage. 

"And what a tragedy that would be!" said Sonic, sarcastically. 

"Yes, in this case" said Sage. "So much power will be transferred to your body, that as soon as you move one of your muscles, you will do it with such force that the particles in your body will collapse on themselves and you will disintegrate into minute smaller-than-atom pieces!!!" 

Sonic took a step back and decided to admire the gem from afar. 

"Wait a minute!" said Knux. "If you can't touch it (and it's too big to carry anyway), how are we going to carry it to safety? What the heck are we going to do with it?" He had a point. All this time they had searched for the gem, they had not once thought of how to get it away. They didn't have to think long, because there was a rumbling sound, and the wall began to crack. The sound of robotic tools behind it. 

At least ten thousand SWAT bots, five hundred worker bots, one blue assassin robot and one maniacal villain poured through the wall as it crumbled. Robotnik stood there, grinning at his prize, until he saw Sonic, Knuckles, Tails and Sage. "Wha....YOU!!!" he screeched, staring at them. "What are YOU doing here? HOW DID YOU KNOW!?!" 

"There isn't much I don't know!" said Sonic. "You, on the other hand..." 

"MECHA!!! GRAB THEM!!!" yelled Robotnik. Mecha stood up slowly as if he was an old man, and hobbled towards Sonic and co. 

"Whoa, Metal Sonic!" said Sonic sarcastically. "Gee, you're scary today! 'bout as scary as a stuffed pink teddy bear with 'hug me' written on its chest!" 

This seemed to irk Mecha a bit, but he still couldn't seem to be bothered killing Sonic (for once). Robotnik frowned at his robot's slackness. 

"Look, I can't be bothered waiting forty days and forty nights for Mecha to move his butt over here and capture me." said Sonic, running off. "Ro-butthead, better fix him up, for once he's a bit too little a challenge for me!" he ran over and began sawing through SWAT bots with a spin-dash. 

Robotnik ran around the corner and showed up again in his Egg-o-Matic hovercraft, with a huge clamp on the front. 

"Sonic!" yelled Tails. Sonic stopped his wrath, and looked over at Robotnik. The doctor clasped onto the Havoc Gem and began to fly off with it. Sonic zipped over in front of his ship. 

"Do you really think you can get away?" he asked Robotnik. 

"Oh, I think you'll find you have more important things to attend to, and you'll let me go" replied Ivo. 

Sonic let out a very nasal snicker. "Oh yeah?" he giggled. 

Robotnik pulled out a laser rifle as fast as lightning and blew away Knuckles. "Yeah" 

CHAPTER TEN: POWER-HUNGRY IVO or EGG FORTRESS 

Knuckles' eyes opened slowly, and he was instantly met with surging pain. Groaning, he looked at his shoulder. The very sight of it knocked him out again. Robotnik had hit him in the shoulder with a mighty powerful weapon. If he had better aim, he would have hit the target, Knux's head, and killed him instantly. Instead there was a crater in his arm that looked as if he was hit by Halley's Comet. To describe it in more detail, I would have to rate this story 'MA 15+', so I will just say that it took Sonic and Sage an hour to bandage it, and they did indeed have to let Robotnik go. Later, Knux awakened again. He groaned when the pain came back in his arm. "Why do I always get injured?" he asked. "Every adventure we have together leads to me being shot, falling of a cliff, poisoned or bashed!" 

Sonic smiled. "Bad luck streak?" he suggested. 

The four walked another several kilometers practically back to where they started this whole ordeal. "Where would Robotnik put a base?" asked Sonic. 

He turned to Knux who was limping slightly even though it was his arm that was shot. "If you were Robotnik, where would you build a base?" 

"If I was Robotnik, I would be too busy eating to answer that" Knux replied, smiling. 

He heard Tails laughing a couple of meters away. 

"There it is!" said Sonic. He pointed to a huge building that looked like Robotnik's head and shoulders. 

"Are you sure?" asked Knuckles. 

"Hmm..lets see" said Sonic. "Robotnik built the Death Egg with his face on it, he attacked us with a big robot several years ago that looked just like him, he attacked us with an even bigger robot a few years after that that looked just like him, umm, oh yeah, when I went to Little Planet last year, he built his Metallic Madness Base to look just like him, umm, oh yeah, and..." 

"Okay, I get the point" interrupted Knux. They approached the huge building, and noticed the door was open. Inside, everything was white. 

"Wow, looks like a ten story bathroom!" said Sonic. 

"I'll say!" said Tails. "Everything is pitch white in here!" 

Sonic looked at him funny. "Umm, Tails?" he said. 

"So, I couldn't think of anything that's really white" said Tails, apologetically, "So I said Pitch instead!" 

There was a deep rumbling noise coming from further into the fortress. It was a large group of SWAT bots. 

"Did we trip a silent alarm or something?" asked Knux. 

"Dunno" said Sonic, backing off. "There sure is a lot of them!" 

The robots speeded towards them. They were trapped. 

Sage reached into his backpack and brought out an arrow. He put it in his bow and shot it at one of the bots. It whizzed through the air and hit the robot, splitting it, and Sage reached for another arrow. Knuckles ran into the mechanical crowd, slamming his one good fist into them. Tails grabbed Sonic and air-lifted him over the robots. He then threw the hedgehog into the crowd, and as he flew through the air, he did a mid-air spindash and slammed into the robots, slicing them straight through. After five minutes, there was a pile of shredded debris in the middle of the room. 

"You know, I think we make a pretty good team." said Sonic, admiring their work. 

They ran into the next room. The building seemed like a huge master-computer. Cables and wires littered every room. Control panels and monitors were in every corner. As they admired the machinery, who should step into the room, but Robotnik. 

"Hey, Ro-butthead!" said Sonic. "Glad you could make the show!" 

Robotnik answered by pulling out a machine gun and letting it rip. 

"HEY!" yelled Knuckles, still paranoid from the last time Robotnik shot him. 

As Robotnik concentrated his wrath on Sonic, Knux walked up to him and smacked him in the face with his fist. It should have knocked him out, but instead Knux just got his knuckles stuck in Robotnik's cheek. "Hey, what th..." he yelled, yanking his hand from Robotnik's face. There was no blood, only two holes in the doctor's head where Knuckles' knuckles had been, and the occasional spark. 

CHAPTER ELEVEN: GRAND FINALE 

"Robotnik's a---a---ROBOT!" screamed Knuckles. "He's just a dumb ROBOT?" gasped Sonic. 

"Yes" came a voice from in the shadows. Another Robotnik floated towards them in the Egg-o-Matic. "Yes, HE is a dumb robot, but I'm not!" He was hovering just out of reach. The mechanical replica began to take off its clothing, revealing crude steel and wires and things. It looked somewhat like Mecha, only fatter. 

"What do you call him, ROBOROBOTNIK?" asked Sonic, smirking. 

"No, Mecha-Ivo!" replied Robotnik. 

Suddenly, Mecha-Ivo attacked with full force! Lasers, bullets, he was shooting everything! And he was extending his arms and using his fists as clubs! Robotnik was getting a real laugh out of it. Sonic, Tails and Knuckles were having a very hard time avoiding it. Mecha-Ivo didn't seem to be concentrating on Sage, and it was a good thing, too. The echidna aimed his arrow very well, and shot it at the new robot. It entered perfectly through a hole in Mecha-Ivo's back, and the robot stopped dead in a shower of sparks. "NOOOO!" screamed Robotnik, descending to have a look at the robot. Sonic grinned and shot towards the doctor's craft in a spindash. 

********** 

They were greeted back at the echidna village with a hero's welcome. The prophecy had been fulfilled, the robots were stopped. Robotnik, low on supplies and robots, had fled the island. Sage was greeted just as much, but he had news. "I think I would like to leave and join the Freedom Fighters." he said. "From what Sonic tells me, It's a wonderful life." 

The echidnas, especially Nasha, were sad to see him go, but he promised to visit. "You completed this quest well, my sons, I didn't even have to tell you the location of the gem." said the old echidna, Pantheos. Sonic gasped. 

"You mean you knew where it was all this time!?!" 

"Indeed I did" replied Pantheos. "But you were in need of the quest. It widened your skills, both in fighting, but also in reasoning." 

So, as the sun went down, and three gods and a heroic newcomer walked over the horizon, another great adventure comes to an end. And though I wasn't there myself, this was how it happened in the words of Sonic himself, as he told me. But I am afraid, that every story has an end, and this one is no different. 

THE END 

SERIES ONE CHRONOLOGY:   
1. Time and Space   
2. I Am Your Evil Twin   
3. Micro-Sonic   
4. Android Wars   
5. Chaos   
6. Diary of a Mad Assassin   
7. Fire in the Sky   
8. The Guests of Honor   
9. Time and Punishment   
10. The Secret Past   
11. Tale of a Rocket Knight   
12. Cyber Sonic   
13. Apocalypse

   [1]: http://www.stas.net/1/shax/Virtualden.html
   [2]: mailto:Shaxr@angelfire.com



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